It appears that you are using either an older, classic Web browser or a hand-held device that allows you to view our content but may not work with every feature of our site. If you are using an older browser, please upgrade for the best experience.

Past Projects

Lingan Generating Station in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality on Cape Breton Island. Also shown are 2 locomotives of the Sydney Coal Railway leaving the power station after unloading coal for the plant.Ken Heaton CC BY-SA 3.0

New Discussion Paper

In "Negotiating Effective Institutions Against Climate Change," Christian Gollier and Jean Tirole argue that the climate change global commons problem will be solved only through coherent carbon pricing. They discuss a roadmap for negotiating a uniform carbon price across countries, for verification of emissions reduction, and for a governance process to which countries would commit.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS

Professor Stavins explained how the global commons dilemma provides a disincentive for action on climate change by individual countries since the climate benefits they gain individually would be less than the cost of action, while on a global basis the benefits could be much greater. Stavins argued that carbon taxes or cap-and-trade systems are the most effective solutions to reduce emissions.

"Last year at the United Nations General Assembly, heads of state came together to talk about climate change. We had an announcement on carbon pricing signed on by more than 70 countries, more than 1,000 businesses — reflecting this emerging view of both those in public policy and those using the technologies in the business world — that pricing carbon is the way to get us off of fossil fuels, to create that incentive for the technologies that will allow us to still enjoy the level of economic development that we aspire to, without having an adverse impact on the climate."

Inadequate policy surveillance has undermined the effectiveness of multilateral climate agreements. To illustrate an alternative approach to transparency, the author evaluated policy surveillance under the 2009 G-20 fossil fuel subsidies agreement. The Leaders of the Group of 20 nations tasked their energy and finance ministers to identify and phase-out fossil fuel subsidies. The G-20 leaders agreed to submit their subsidy reform strategies to peer review and to independent expert review conducted by international organizations.

Experts from universities, think tanks, the World Bank, and private companies met at the Harvard Kennedy School on May 7 and 8, 2015 to discuss how flexible approaches to exchanging mitigation commitments might be incorporated into the new climate agreement to be concluded in Paris later in 2015. The workshop, "Comparison and Linkage of Mitigation Efforts in a New Paris Regime," was co-sponsored by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, and World Bank Group's Networked Carbon Markets Initiative.

Resident Expert

Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, and Chairman of the Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Group.